Traces of Chemicals in Syria Add to Pressure on Obama to Enforce a ‘Red Line’
Version 0 of 1. WASHINGTON — If President Obama hoped that the danger of chemical warfare in the Middle East receded when Syria gave up tons of poison gas, mounting evidence that toxic weapons remain in the strife-torn country could once again force him to decide just how far he is willing to go to enforce his famous “red line.” The discovery of traces of ricin and sarin in Syria, combined with the use of chlorine as a makeshift weapon in the country’s grinding civil war, undercut what Mr. Obama had viewed as a signal triumph of his foreign policy, the destruction of President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical arsenal. But Mr. Obama appears no more eager to use military force against Mr. Assad’s government today than he was in 2013 when he abruptly called off a threatened airstrike in exchange for a Russian-brokered agreement in which Syria voluntarily gave up its chemical weapons. Instead, the Obama administration responded to reports of violations this time by seeking renewed assistance from Russia and exploring a new United Nations Security Council resolution addressing Syria’s continued use of chemicals as weapons. “You’re dealing with a regime that is not very credible on weapons of mass destruction programs,” said Robert Ford, the Obama administration’s former ambassador to Syria. “No one should be surprised the regime didn’t declare all of its facilities. But the bad news in all of this is the regime is using chemical weapons regularly — even if not sarin gas now, they’re using chlorine gas regularly and they are not deterred from doing so.” Mr. Obama already faced a quandary because of recent reports that the Syrian government had bombarded areas held by insurgents with chlorine-filled barrel bombs. Chlorine was not banned under the Russian-American agreement with Syria to remove and destroy its chemical weapons, but it is barred by international convention. The president’s situation grew more complicated with new reports that international inspectors had found traces of sarin and ricin, which were covered by the Russian-American agreement. While there was no clear evidence of new use or production of such forbidden weapons, the revelations reinforced suspicions that Syria was cheating. Several American and other Western intelligence analysts suspect that the Assad government hid small stockpiles of banned chemical agents, such as sarin, apart from the vast amounts that were formally declared, removed from the country and ultimately destroyed. But other analysts said it was likelier that Syria was not completely forthright at the time of the agreement in declaring what agents it had produced in the past and where it had produced them. Thus, the traces now being found by inspectors as they examine site after site may be evidence of past chemical development in places Mr. Assad never declared, rather than signs of new production. “Over all, our assessment is that Syria has not declared all the elements of its chemical weapons program and that it might retain chemical weapons,” Jeff Rathke, a State Department spokesman, said in an interview. The Obama administration, he added, has repeatedly asked Syria to “clarify discrepancies and omissions” in its formal declaration of its arsenal. While tons of dangerous gases and other material were taken out of Mr. Assad’s hands, Syria so far has destroyed only 17 of the 27 sites it disclosed as facilities used to produce chemical weapons. And the Obama administration has criticized the use of chlorine barrel bombs against civilians. “The Assad regime continues to terrorize the people of Syria through indiscriminate airstrikes, barrel bombings and arbitrary detention and other gross acts of violence that are committed against their own people,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary. But the White House was in no hurry to take action, apparently hoping to use the investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to put off a decision and seek a consensus with other nations. Secretary of State John Kerry raised the issue of chlorine attacks during his talks with Russian officials in Sochi this week. The Assad government is the only force in Syria’s multifront civil war that has the aircraft that witnesses have said have been dropping chlorine bombs. But the Security Council, where Russia wields a veto, has yet to assign blame, and it is far from clear that Washington and Moscow can work together on the issue. Mr. Kerry suggested that the two sides begin by sharing intelligence reports as a prelude to trying to form a common strategy. But Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, voiced concern that such reports might be used politically against Mr. Assad’s government, a longtime Russian ally, and called for an international investigation instead. The latest reports fueled the debate in Washington, where Mr. Obama has been under pressure for years over his handling of Syria’s civil war and the use of chemical weapons. While Mr. Obama wages war against the Islamic State, an enemy of Syria and the United States, he has resisted becoming too directly enmeshed in the fight to topple Mr. Assad’s government. One exception was the use of chemical weapons, which he said would cross a red line that would force American action. After a chemical weapons attack killed an estimated 1,400 people in 2013, Mr. Obama first threatened an airstrike against the government in retaliation, then accepted a Russian offer to negotiate the voluntary removal of Mr. Assad’s chemical weapons. Now some critics in Washington say Mr. Obama’s credibility is again on the line. “It puts us back in a situation where unless you do put the military option on the table, it’s hard to enforce these agreements,” said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. “It puts us back in another hot summer.” Mr. Ford, who left the State Department discouraged by the administration’s approach to Syria, agreed. “Something sterner will have to be done with respect to deterring the regime,” said Mr. Ford, now at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “Otherwise, they will continue to flout the Chemical Weapons Convention, which specifically bans using chlorine gas, and will very likely try to do other things.” But the Obama administration appeared intent on resisting pressure. Steven Simon, a former White House national security aide now at Dartmouth College, said traces of chemical weapons were hardly a threat to core American interests. “The discovery of trace amounts of sarin, the residue from the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons program, has been seized by proponents of intervention to nudge the president toward a military involvement that he has avoided so far,” he said. “Getting involved in the civil war is a really bad idea.” |